I think most of the posters here see bullying as a negative behavior when it happens to anyone.
That is not what I meant. What I meant was that the
behaviour is more likely to be called bullying when it happens to you or even more likely when it happens to someone you love, like your children.
The thing is, that behaviour is useful in everyday life but it is not always classed as bullying. What we call bullying is just the more obvious use of it which is usually when there is a physical threat or, actual violence, but the
behaviour is the same.
Indeed. Some people are ******** and will stoop to such things to get what they want.
Agreed but we humans are not so different. We all tend to the same behaviour just in varying degrees. When I want to teach children about predators I teach them the tactics predators use and then have their parents take them shopping for appliances, electronics, used cars, etc. The reason is not that predators hang out at these places, it is that high pressure sales people use the same tactics as predators do. It is an easy way for see the techniques in action and recognize when they are being used on you.
Some people only see bullying as someone threatening them in order to gain status or power, as was mentioned earlier. However, it isn't the threat that gains them the status, it is the showing their physical strength and willingness to use it.
There are other ways to gain status in a group. Being very smart, or very funny, can do the same for you. But what about when a very smart person runs down someone who is weaker intellectually than they are, isn't that bullying as well? Have one kid remind another that they are smarter, constantly, for years and I bet you get the same psychological issues that people who are threatened with physical violence everyday suffer.
Bullying is a behaviour.
You're conflating occasional exploitation of positions of power with the systematic, constant abuses that many adolescents are made to suffer. The latter is obviously what this thread is about, and it typically does occur on school grounds with uneducated brutes as the aggressors, yes.
In my experience, bullies come from all backgrounds. All bullying is the exploitation of a position of power. The traditional bully is exploiting his physical position of power over a weaker person. No matter where they learnt the behaviour, they are practicing it through bullying.
The point I am making in all this is that you or I don't have the time to retrain bullies but we are often the ones who have to deal with them. I don't care what makes them tick, I don't care where they learnt the behaviour, and i don't care what form it takes, I only want to be able to effectivley counter it.
Bullying is just another form of conflict in society. The better you are at handling conflict the better able you are to live a happy life.
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